THERE WAS a touch of the lion’s den about Michael O’Leary’s appearance at the Irish travel agents’ annual shindig in Dublin yesterday, although the Ryanair chief executive was way more Goliath than David – and the poor tour operators were like lambs to the slaughter.
No one was safe from his invective. The Government, the Dublin Airport Authority, “a nutty judge” in Spain, unions and golfers all got it in the neck over the course of his 45-minute “travel clinic”. Even transition year students were, for reasons best known to himself, “the greatest scourge known to man”.
First, there were the hapless travel agents who invited him to their Holiday World at the RDS. “Don’t waste your time with tour operators and travel agents. Book your flights with us and your accommodation independently and you will save money,” he started. Cue nervous laughter from the tour operators and travel agents who made up most of the 250-strong audience.
Next was another of his pet peeves. “The stupid Government still hasn’t seen the error of their way and got rid of the egregious airport tax,” he said, unimpressed with the announcement in the Budget that the tax was to fall from €10 to €3. It needed to be scrapped altogether, he said, as “the weather is not good enough and there’s not enough to do” in Ireland to support it.
He paused to inform the crowd he would give free flights for the most insulting question, the most fawning question and the question from the prettiest woman. “If I was working for Sky, I’d probably be sacked for saying that,” he said, before stating people don’t get fired for sexism at Ryanair.
As a tour operator who brings golfers into Ireland criticised the airline for the charges it imposes on his clients to carry checked-in bags, guitars and clubs, O’Leary checked his phone for messages and dismissed the criticism with a withering one-liner. “Maybe if you’re a guitar-playing golfer on the doss, you’re not my market. I don’t give a sh**e.”
A woman with a fur coat which, in O’Leary’s eyes marked her out as an Aer Lingus customer, launched a sustained attack on Ryanair’s baggage charges. She said she weighed her luggage before departing for airports and were always under 15kg – the maximum Ryanair allows for checked-in bags before excess charges kicked in. Her bags always seemed to gain weight by the time she got to the Ryanair check-in desk and she was always penalised, she said. He wasn’t bothered. His scales were perfect and independently verified.
He was asked whether Ryanair “incentivises” its check-in staff to hit people with excess baggage charges? “No,” he said, before pausing. “They do get a share of revenues to make sure they implement our policies,” he said, adding this could not be considered an incentive.
On the Department of Transport – or, in O’Leary-speak, “useless pudding head bureaucrats” – you could almost see steam coming from his ears. “I’d like to go down there in a tank and blow it up.” The only thing that got his back up more than the Department of Transport was the Dublin Airport Authority – “Evil empires always fail, so the DAA is doomed to fail, as is Fianna Fáil.”
On more serious stuff, he adopted a slightly more sober approach. He said he was “very supportive” of Aer Lingus management in its current dispute with cabin crew, accusing their union Impact of trying to “disrupt” an agreement reached with management last year. “They voted in favour of it. They should implement it. I hope Aer Lingus holds the line and I hope the cabin crew see sense. They are very well paid – are not overworked.”
He warned if the dispute was not resolved Aer Lingus would “go down the tubes and there will be a lot of jobs lost”.
The “travel clinic” then turned to politics. Would he like a ministerial portfolio? “No. I am proud to be Irish but I am far more proud of running Ryanair. It is a much more interesting job than becoming a politician. I don’t have the patience for it.” As for our economic woes? “We elected these numpties three times in a row and we should take some responsibility for the situation.”
It ended with loud applause and a scrum – as tour operators and travel agents showed themselves more pussycats than lions and fought to have a picture taken with their bête noire.
